February 7 (SeeNews) - Montenegro expects candidates for a concession contract to run the country's two international airports, in Tivat and Podgorica, to submit their final offers this summer, local media reported on Wednesday.
"It is unbelievable that this project has been open for five full years and that it has not moved on to the next phase," public broadcaster RTCG quoted transport minister Filip Radulovic as saying.
In January, Radulovic said that Montenegro has invited three investors interested to submit their offers. News outlet Vijesti quoted prime minister Milojko Spajic as saying that they are Aeroports de Paris, Incheon Airports and Corporacion America Airports.
Later last month, Montenegro's government authorised the transport ministry to resume talks with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on launching a second stage of a tender for awarding a 30-year concession contract.
According to local media, the IFC, acting as a consultant in the tender process, has warned the government that "the parameters of the concession agreement jeopardize the feasibility of the transaction" and need to be revised. According to news portal Montenegro Business, concerns were also raised about unresolved property issues related to the landplot on which Tivat Airport is built. The government is now working to resolve the issues, the news portal added.
In 2019, Montenegro received seven bids in the pre-qualification stage of a tender for awarding a 30-year concession contract to run the two airports. The following year, the government picked four companies as qualified bidders: South Korea's Incheon International Airport Corporation; India's GMR Airports; Luxembourg-registered Corporacion America Airports; and a consortium of France's Groupe Aeroports de Paris (ADP) and Turkey's TAV.
In March 2020, GMR informed the tender commission it was withdrawing from the competition. The transport ministry held discussions with the remaining three qualified bidders in 2021. Corporacion America Airports and the ADP - TAV consortium confirmed their readiness to participate in the next stage of the tender, while Incheon asked the Montenegrin government to consider lowering or scrapping altogether the required one-off concession fee. Since then, the process has stalled.
The airports in the Adriatic town of Tivat and in the capital Podgorica served a combined 2.51 million passengers in 2023, up from 1.92 million in 2022.